CHAPTER 16: Globalization in a Changing World
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. How does the textbook define social change?
a. the transformation of the physical world
b. as an entirely positive act
c. the transformation of social institutions and culture of a society over time
d. a change in class status
Answer: C
2. Transformation of the social institutions and culture of a society over time is called:
a. social change
b. social continuation
c. radical change
d. evolution
Answer: A
3. Which of the following factors has NOT consistently influenced social change over time?
a. the physical environment
b. political organization
c. cultural factors
d. the invention of the automobile
Answer: D
4. Who among the following would most likely lament the movement toward globalization?
a. the president of a transnational corporation
b. a computer engineer
c. the head of a small-town historical society
d. a university dean
Answer: C
5. A collective attempt to further a common interest or to secure a common goal through
action outside the sphere of established institutions is a:
a. social movement
b. collective behavior
c. riot
d. revolution
Answer: A
6. What was the most significant political factor in speeding up patterns of change in the
modern world?
a. the invention of the ballot box
b. the emergence of the modern state
c. the commitment to less government involvement in social life and the economy
d. the implementation of the two-party system
Answer: B
7. Which of the following is NOT included in the cultural factors that might influence social
change?
a. religion
b. communication systems
c. leadership
d. museum exhibits
Answer: D
8. What invention first made possible increased control of material resources, the
development of large-scale organizations, and an altered sense of past, present, and future?
a. the wheel
b. writing
c. capitalism
d. the computer
Answer: B
9. The cultural factors that have most influenced social change, including political change and
revolution, do NOT include:
a. the development of science
b. the secularization of thought
c. the critical and innovative character of the modern outlook
d. global warming
Answer: D
10. ________ have subsumed the physical environment as a factor in social change over the
last 200 years.
a. Religions
b. Economic influences
c. Political influences
d. Extended families
Answer: B
11. The most far-reaching economic influence on social change has been the:
a. invention of the wheel
b. invention of the hammer
c. impact of industrial capitalism
d. invention of the sickle
Answer: C
12. Capitalism stimulates social change in an unprecedented way because it:
a. involves the constant expansion of production
b. involves the ever-diminishing accumulation of wealth
c. requires that the technology of production remain the same over time
d. requires a slower rate of innovation in modern industry than in any other sector
Answer: A
13. Which term has been used to describe the new society that is no longer based on
industrialism?
a. information society
b. service society
c. knowledge society
d. thoughtful society
Answer: D
14. Daniel Bell and Alain Touraine both used the term ________ to refer to the new society
that is no longer dependent on industrialism.
a. information society
b. service society
c. postindustrial
d. postcapitalistic
Answer: C
15. What feature is displacing the manufacture of material goods as the basis of the
production system?
a. the consumption of material goods
b. the development and dissemination of information and knowledge
c. agriculture
d. hunting
Answer: B
16. The most essential type of employee in the postindustrial order, according to Daniel Bell,
is the ________ worker.
a. blue-collar
b. pink-collar
c. white-collar
d. factory
Answer: C
17. Systematic, coordinated information, or ________, is now society’s most strategic
resource, according to Daniel Bell.
a. codified knowledge
b. stratified knowledge
c. blue-collar work
d. bureaucracy
Answer: A
18. The belief that society is no longer controlled by history and progress is called:
a. postindustrialism
b. postmodernism
c. historicity
d. posthistoricity
Answer: B
19. In the postmodern world there is:
a. great historical progress
b. a universal culture worldwide
c. great stability
d. great diversity
Answer: D
20. According to advocates of postmodernity, the current period is the ________ of history
because ________ has triumphed worldwide.
a. beginning; capitalist democracy
b. end; capitalist democracy
c. beginning; communism
d. end; communism
Answer: B
21. The primary source of the contradictions that lead to class struggle and revolution is
________, in Karl Marx’s model.
a. change in the forces of production
b. change in the minds of the bourgeoisie
c. change in the minds of the proletariat
d. the political system
Answer: A
22. According to James Davies, a sense of ________ in times of improving living conditions
and ________ lead to protest and revolution.
a. absolute deprivation; falling expectations
b. absolute deprivation; rising expectations
c. relative deprivation; falling expectations
d. relative deprivation; rising expectations
Answer: D
23. According to Charles Tilly, which of the following is NOT a component of collective
action?
a. organization
b. mobilization
c. common interests
d. individualism
Answer: D
24. Which is NOT an example of structural strain in Neil Smelser’s terms?
a. uncertainties about goals
b. clashes of goals
c. persistent inequalities between ethnic groups
d. shared goals
Answer: D
25. Alain Touraine’s concept of “historicity” means that:
a. one must understand the past of urban areas in order to understand the present
b. there are more social movements in the modern world because individuals and groups
know that social activism can be used to achieve social goals and reshape society
c. social movements are generally furthered by people who are totally out of control of their
emotions
d. people must have a knowledge of past global revolutions and wars to inform any political
activism in the modern world
Answer: B
26. Which of the following is the best example of social change?
a. the process of dropping a physics course and adding a sociology course
b. changing your clothes each day and washing them in a washing machine
c. accumulating thirty semester credits and thereby changing your status from freshman to
sophomore
d. the desegregation of colleges and universities in the United States
Answer: D
27. Seen as a unique product of late modern society, ________ differ significantly in
methods, motivations, and orientations from the collective action of earlier times.
a. liberal democracies
b. new social movements
c. old social movements
d. nation-states
Answer: B
28. Which of the following might be labeled a new social movement rather than a
conventional social movement?
a. women’s suffrage movement
b. civil rights movement
c. abolitionist movement
d. prohibition movement
Answer: B
29. What do protesters against the World Trade Organization, college students demanding
higher wages for dormitory janitors, and Chechen rebels have in common?
a. Each group comprises ethnically, racially, and economically diverse members.
b. They can trace their roots to the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1960s.
c. They have used modern information technology to facilitate their organizing.
d. They have successfully met their goals and changed key situations.
Answer: C
30. Since the 1960s, the biggest contribution to accelerating and deepening the process of
globalization has been made by the rapid development and diffusion of ________
technologies, which have enhanced the compression of time and space.
a. communication
b. transportation
c. manufacturing
d. accounting
Answer: A
31. Globalization is being driven by the integration of the world economy, which is now
dominated by activity that is:
a. noneconomic
b. material
c. weightless
d. massive
Answer: C
32. According to the text, among the most significant political causes of globalization was
the:
a. development of a socialist alternative to the capitalist world market
b. rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a response to Western political influence in the Arab
world
c. collapse of the Soviet bloc and the end of isolation for the former Second World
d. historic 2008 U.S. presidential election
Answer: C
33. Contributing to the intensification of globalization has been the growing influence of:
a. city government
b. intergovernmental organizations
c. township nongovernmental organizations
d. limited information technology
Answer: B
34. According to the text, the global flow of information has resulted in:
a. an increased sense of human detachment from others
b. intensification of local cultural identities
c. intensified allegiance to the workplace
d. increased identification with the nation-state as a source of identity
Answer: D
35. Which of the following characterizes the shift to a global, rather than a national, outlook?
a. a man with a decidedly Italian accent telling a reporter he is from Europe
b. the civil religion of the United States
c. demands from French citizens that McDonald’s restaurants be removed from their cities
d. the United Nations’ refusal to send troops to Sudan to stop the genocide in southern Sudan
Answer: A
36. In what way is the nation-state ineffective in solving many contemporary problems?
a. Democratic organizations, such as those that dominate the nation-states of the world,
operate too inefficiently to cope with current problems.
b. Most nation-states are too cumbersome and large to eliminate problems efficiently.
c. The proliferation of nation-states negates their ability to eradicate social and economic
problems.
d. Modern problems are found worldwide and can easily spread across nation-state borders.
Answer: D
37. At the heart of economic globalization are the:
a. INGOs
b. IGOs
c. TNCs
d. BSEs
Answer: C
38. Which of the following is the best example of a transnational corporation?
a. Jane Wilson, DMD, your dentist, her five assistants, and the hygienist
b. College Cleaners, the janitorial service that cleans the university buildings
c. Gooden, Brogan, Cangas, and Romero, a law firm with offices in the United States and
Canada
d. Max’s Grille and Bar, a small bistro about two miles from your house
Answer: C
39. Which perspective argues that regionalization within the world economy produces less
integration and that national governments continue to play a vital role in the economy?
a. the skeptics
b. the hyperglobalizers
c. the transformationalists
d. the critics
Answer: A
40. Which perspective, exemplified by Kenichi Ohmae, argues that globalization is producing
a “borderless world” in which national governments are no longer in control of their own
economies, resulting in a loss of faith by their citizens?
a. the skeptics
b. the hyperglobalizers
c. the transformationalists
d. the critics
Answer: B
41. Which view in the globalization debate takes a “middle position,” seeing many old
patterns persisting while the broader global order is being transformed in a dynamic process
that is open to influence and change?
a. the skeptics
b. the hyperglobalizers
c. the transformationalists
d. the critics
Answer: C
42. Which perspective sees the political structures of countries adapting to challenges from
new forms of economic and social organization, from corporations to social movements?
a. the skeptics
b. the hyperglobalizers
c. the transformationalists
d. the critics
Answer: C
43. According to the text, a “new individualism” is affecting people in their everyday lives in
which:
a. tradition and custom are reintensified
b. established values are held to be sacred and inviolable
c. they must actively construct their own identities in an open and reflexive way
d. factors such as race and gender can be used to discriminate against them
Answer: C
44. In terms of people’s working lives, globalization makes it more likely that individuals will
experience a(n):
a. stable job for life
b. exciting career in manufacturing
c. exciting career in agriculture
d. self-made career path, with several changes over their lifetime
Answer: D
45. Films like Titanic:
a. invoke ideas that resonate only in the United States and in Europe
b. reflect a shift in values in many societies from old traditions to a more Western view
c. contribute to a shift in values in many societies from a more Western view to old traditions
d. reflect ideals to which most societies aspire, but fail to achieve
Answer: B
46. Sociologists who see an agenda in the spread of Western-made films and television
programs that promote the political, social, and economic interests of the West call this
process:
a. hyperglobalization
b. cultural imperialism
c. Westernization
d. differentiation
Answer: B
47. As a result of globalization, humans now face risks created by the impact of our own
knowledge and technology on the natural world, or:
a. external risk
b. manufactured risk
c. natural risk
d. hyper-risk
Answer: B
48. Depletion of the ozone layer is a manufactured risk that likely contributes to:
a. new forms of “hybrid identity”
b. mad cow disease
c. increased risk of skin cancer
d. longer days and shorter nights
Answer: C
49. Which of the following is a manufactured risk?
a. Florida being pummeled with four hurricanes during 2004
b. the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in Pennsylvania
c. the November 10, 1975, wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior
d. the smog and toxic gases released by the eruption of Washington State’s Mount St. Helens
in 1980 and 2004
Answer: B
50. Melanoma is a particularly virulent cancer. It is commonly referred to as skin cancer and
its numbers have been increasing in the past few decades. What best explains the reason for
the increase?
a. College students have more time available and use their spare time to “catch some rays.”
b. Chemical emissions have minimized the effectiveness of the ozone layer.
c. The popular South Beach in Miami has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of
beachgoers.
d. The amount of time people spend either working or playing at their computer has
increased.
Answer: B
51. According to Ulrich Beck, the hazards of the risk society:
a. are limited to environmental and health concerns
b. affect only those in the most affluent societies
c. are not restricted spatially, temporally, or socially
d. are class and status based
Answer: C
52. In Risk Society, German sociologist Ulrich Beck says that risks are:
a. regional
b. purposeful
c. spatially unrestricted
d. class based
Answer: D
53. When computer specialists speak about the “love bug,” they are referring to:
a. the phenomenal international sales of the reintroduced Volkswagen beetle
b. the mass wedding of hundreds of couples performed via the Internet by Reverend Sun
Myung Moon of the Unification Church
c. the upsurge in online orders for flowers during February for Valentine’s Day and during
May, at the arrival of spring
d. a computer virus that affected e-mail servers around the globe in 2000
Answer: D
54. Globalization is a(n) ________ process; the disparity between the developed and
developing world is ________.
a. uneven; greater than ever
b. leveling; decreasing rapidly
c. uneven; growing, but is still less than it was in the nineteenth century
d. leveling; slowly shrinking
Answer: A
55. In which of the following areas is the imbalance between developed and developing
countries apparent?
a. the concentration of the world’s wealth and income within a set of core countries
b. the movement of money by financial institutions
c. investments in service industries
d. the controls over books, videotapes, music CDs, and DVDs
Answer: A
56. Which of the following best characterizes the textbook authors’ view of globalization?
a. They are pessimistic about the results, hoping instead for a return to nation-state
dominance.
b. They are strong supporters of the World Trade Organization and see it as a viable regulator
for global economic growth.
c. They believe opposition toward globalization is limited to a few developing countries that
interpret it as a threat to their autocratic governments.
d. They return to the basic ideas behind structuration, that is, our ability to change our
circumstances within the scope of a globalized economy.
Answer: D
57. How would you best describe the gap in economic growth between the poorest and the
richest countries?
a. Technological changes have allowed the poorest countries to catch up to their wealthier
neighbors.
b. The gap between the world’s richest and poorest country has widened from about 10 to 1 a
hundred years ago to over 150 to 1 today.
c. The gap between the world’s richest and poorest country has narrowed from about 90 to 1 a
hundred years ago, to less than 75 to 1 today.
d. The increase in international trade has narrowed the gap between the richest and poorest
countries.
Answer: B
58. Organizations such as the World Trade Organization argue that liberalized trade
regulations and reduced trade barriers will:
a. not benefit the developed countries
b. not benefit the developing nations
c. minimize the integration of developing countries in the global economy
d. enable developing countries to gain access to world markets
Answer: D
59. What has been the World Trade Organization (WTO) position on free trade?
a. It has actively supported free trade regulations between all countries.
b. The WTO has supported free trade only in the area of intellectual property.
c. It insists that poor countries gain access to world markets through the exportation of goods
by industrialized nations.
d. It has insisted that developed countries eliminate any income support for farmers, so
developing countries can export their agricultural goods.
Answer: C
60. The campaign for “global justice” is:
a. antiglobalization
b. in favor of the policies proposed by the World Trade Organization
c. opposed to “sustainable development”
d. an advocacy effort that promotes human rights over corporate profit making
Answer: D
61. Protesters against the World Trade Organization claim it is:
a. communist
b. more concerned with corporate profits than human rights
c. dominated by Asia
d. ruled by Third World countries
Answer: B
62. Which of the following best explains the demands of the World Trade Organization
protesters?
a. They want international trade regulations to address human rights issues before profit.
b. They want to increase the free trade advantages given to richer countries.
c. They want to abolish all tariffs.
d. They want an end to transnational corporations.
Answer: A
TRUE/FALSE
1. Human beings will always adapt their societies to make the most productive use of their
immediate physical environment.
Answer: False
2. Economic influences are the most important factors driving social change today.
Answer: True
3. The term first used by Daniel Bell and Alain Touraine to describe societal development
beyond the industrial era was “postindustrial society.”
Answer: True
4. The fastest-growing communication tool ever developed was Alexander Graham Bell’s
invention, the telephone.
Answer: False
5. The biggest transnational corporations have greater total sales than the entire economic
production of most countries in the world.
Answer: True
6. Movies like Titanic may do well in the United States and United Kingdom, but they attract
little attention in most other parts of the world, where traditional values regarding personal
relationships and marriage are growing stronger.
Answer: False
7. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is made up of representatives elected by the citizens
of its member countries.
Answer: False
Test Bank for Essentials of Sociology
Anthony Giddens, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P Appelbaum, Deborah Carr
9780393932379, 9780393674088, 9780393937459, 9780393918830
